Daniel, chapter 9; let's pray. Lord, you said through the prophet Jeremiah, "Call upon me, and I will answer you, and I will show you great and mighty things, which you know not." There couldn't be a probably more apropos promise for what we're about to study than that, because we discover that Daniel was reading the prophecies of Jeremiah when he called upon you and you gave him the great revelation of the future plan of Israel.

Lord, we're going to talk about that today, and I pray your hand of blessing to overcome the limitations of this preacher and perhaps some of our own distractions that we have come in with. It really does take a sovereign work of God to get a message through to human beings in a way that changes their lives. That cannot be done apart from your sovereign Spirit working, and we invite him to do that, in Jesus' name, amen.

God doesn't speak like he used to speak. You ever heard that? You ever heard people say, "God doesn't speak like he used to speak"? Somebody said that and a lady overheard it, and she said, "Pardon me, perhaps it's because people don't listen like they used to listen." Now, I think both are true. Certainly God doesn't speak like he did in the Old Testament, or even through the apostles in the New Testament; that is, there are not written revelations given today like there were in Bible times, that's true. But I also think that in our fast-paced society we don't take nearly the time our predecessors took in listening to God and talking to God.

How many of you have ever seen the movie Cast Away; remember that about a decayed ago? Any, any, any—you could admit that you go to a movie; you're not going to go to hell for that. [laughter] Okay, it was a great movie. It was a long movie, but it was about a castaway. Tom Hanks played the part of a guy named Chuck Noland who is a fast-paced, busy, FedEx executive whose plane with parcels went down over the South Pacific, and he got stranded on this island.

And so he's trying to survive. And in trying to survive he lit a fire with a very sharp stick. He cut his hand pretty severely. A lot of blood was coming out. And in anger and frustration Hanks picks up a volleyball, part of the parcels, and he throws it as far and as hard as he can. Later on he picks up the ball and he notices that on the ball is a handprint. His bloody handprint makes what looks like a fiery head.

And since the ball is named Wilson, right? It's a Wilson volleyball. And he's got this fiery kind of head-looking handprint of blood on the ball. He takes his finger and smears the blood to make a face and he calls it Wilson. And Wilson becomes, like, his new best friend. He has a personal relationship with a volleyball, essentially. He talks to Wilson and they spend their days together and he pours out his heart to Wilson. When Wilson at the end of movie gets taken away because of this sea storm, he's up in arms and all emotional.

There's something very noticeable about the film. Not once in the entire film does the character played by Tom Hanks ever pray to God, not even once. He'll talk to a volleyball, but you gotta wonder, he won't talk to God. But then you gotta wonder about some people. They'll talk to their friends, they'll talk to their therapist, they'll talk to their counselor, they'll talk to the dead, they'll pray to the dead, they'll talk to Dr. Laura, Dr. Phil; they don't talk to God much.

Daniel, chapter 9 is a great story of a prophet who's actually a businessman who talked to God, and the result of him talking to God is one of the riches prophecies of the future in all of the Bible. In fact, it has been called the backbone of biblical prophecy. It's a landmark text. Daniel, chapter 9 is like a Mount Rushmore of the Bible, a Statue of Liberty, an Eiffel Tower of Scripture. It's really a landmark text. Without it much of the prophetic literature in the Bible would be an enigma to us.

And though it is insightful to look at the prophecy, it shows us also insight in to how to talk to God—prophecy, but also prayer. In fact, the prophecy is a result of the prayer that Daniel prays toward the beginning.

Now, I think it's safe to say that people pray all over the world. It's one of the most common human activities; people pray. Christians pray, Muslims pray, Jews pray, Hindus pray, Buddhists pray, even atheists under certain conditions will shoot up a prayer. George Barna reckons that about four out of five Americans pray regularly. Now, I don't know who they're all praying to, or why they're praying, or what the sincerity level of their hearts are, but people pray.

I've always been fascinated by the story of the little, sweet boy who prayed before he went to bed at night: "Dear God, bless Mommy, and bless Daddy, and bless the kitty, and bless the doggy." And then with a very loud voice he said, "And, God, I'd really love a bicycle." And mom said, "Sweetheart, God isn't deaf." He said, "I know, mom, but Grandpa's in the next room, and he is hard of hearing." [laughter] So there's a little boy whose prayer life is sort of really all about getting his will done through his grandpa.

Now, let me tell you one thing I don't want to do this morning. I sincerely don't to want guilt you into praying, because you'll only do it for, like, a day if that's the case. And I know that every time prayer is mentioned from a pulpit, or there's a sermon on it, or a teaching's on the radio, our guilt meter goes bonkers. "Oh, here it is, prayer, yeah."

Because if there's one area I think every believer would say that they're a little bit amiss in, it's that area. You bring up prayer and they go, "Oh, I am such a hypocrite. I don't pray enough. I'm a poor example. I'm not a good Christian." So it's my hope that rather than impugning guilt to y'all, I'd rather encourage you by looking at Daniel and what we did, and how he did it, and what role it played in his life. And because much of chapter 9 of Daniel is devoted to that, we're going to have the opportunity to look at it this week and next week.

So this morning we're only going to look at five verses. And out of those five verses, I want to make a simple three statements. Three true statements about prayer based upon these five verses in Daniel 9. And the first is that prayer is prominent in Daniel's life. And for us prayer should be prominent, prayer should be prominent. Let's look at the first five verses.

"In the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus, of the linage of the Medes, who was made king over the realm of the Chaldeans—in the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem.

"Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes. And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, 'O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant and mercy with those who love him, and with those who keep his commandments, we have sinned and committed iniquity, we have done wickedly and rebelled, even by departing from your precepts and your judgments.' "

So here we begin the chapter and we find Daniel once again praying. Now it's fascinating that we have the date of this prayer; we know exactly when it happened. It said it was "in the first year of Darius the son of Ahasuerus," Darius who's called the Mede. So we immediately know that it was 538 BC, because that was the first year Babylon had fallen to the Medo-Persians and Darius was ruling over the province of Babylon.

Actually, this is how it worked: the king wasn't Darius, the king was a guy named Cyrus who was a Persian, but he brought a coalition of Media and Persia together strengthening his kingdom. But he made Darius his viceroy, his king in his stead over the realm of Babylon. And Darius the Mede was king de facto, but he used other people in his kingdom to help him rule, one of which was Daniel the prophet.

Now, we know all this from chapter 6. Chapter 6 and chapter 9 are parallel accounts in terms of chronology; they both happened at the same time. The same time Daniel and the lions' den happened was the same general year that this prayer was uttered by Daniel.

So here's what's interesting: Daniel was one of the three governors of the territory of Babylon, which means he was a busy guy, means he was an important guy. But as important as Daniel was, and as busy as Daniel was, and might I add, as old as Daniel was (he's about eighty-two in chapter 9) he finds time to pray, and pray what we would say a rather lengthy prayer before the prophecy is given toward the end of the chapter.

So prayer in his life played a prominent role, not just here, but we find that was his M.O. throughout his life since he was a teenager onward he made sure that prayer was prominent. A couple of examples that are notable: in the second chapter Daniel's, like, I don't know, nineteen or twenty, because he was a teenager when he was brought into Babylon.

And that was the chapter when King Nebuchadnezzar had that frightening dream of that image of gold, and silver, and bronze, and iron, and iron and clay. And Nebuchadnezzar didn't know what it meant, so he told his court advisers to tell him what he dreamed and what it meant, or he would kill them all.

And as the edict went out to kill them all, Daniel heard of it and said, "Whoa, whoa, whoa! Now, wait a minute. Go tell the king just to give me a little bit of time." So he goes back home with Shadrach, Meshach, and Abed-Nego, and what's the first thing he does? "Prayer meeting! It's time for a prayer meeting; our necks are on the line." So they pray and they say, "God, be merciful to us and show us what this dream is and what it meant," and God revealed it to them.

So I love it; Daniel as a young man turns his panic into prayer. Isn't that what the Bible says? "Be anxious for nothing, but in everything by prayer and supplication, with thanksgiving, let your request be made known to God." He turned his panic into praying. There's a great church sign in front of a church building during one of the wars. And people were filled with fear. It simply said, "If your knees knock, kneel on them." If you're living in fear, in other words, your knees are knocking—pray. Turn your panic into praying.

The second incident in Daniel's life of his prominence in prayer comes in chapter 6. I mentioned that's the parallel chronology to this chapter. That's the year when Darius gets on the throne, Babylon has fallen, and Daniel is made one of the three administrative governors over the land. His buddies were jealous of him and wanted to get him fired. And they knew the only way to get him fired is to come up with some kind of an accusation dealing with Daniel's relationship to his God: "Because we know he loves his God, and we know he prays a lot."

So, they said, "King, could you make a law and pass it so it reads: 'No one can pray to any god except for you.' They have to pray to you for thirty days." Just thirty days, because they knew Daniel would be caught. The law was passed; Daniel knew it.

Listen to what it says, this is Daniel chapter 6, verse 10, "But when Daniel learned that the law had been signed, he went home and knelt down as usual in his upstairs room, with its windows open toward Jerusalem. He prayed three times a day, just as he always had done, giving thanks to his God." Did you hear the language in that verse? He prayed "as usual." He prayed "as he always had done."

So Daniel prayed because Daniel always prayed. Prayer was a preoccupation. God was a preoccupation to Daniel. It wasn't just a weekend exploration, it was a preoccupation. The reason I got into the ministry was not because it was an occupation, it was a preoccupation with me. I was preoccupied with learning about spiritual things. Now that's not to say you need to be a pastor or a missionary or a prophet to have an effective prayer life or to have an effective life of service to the Lord. In fact, Daniel, though he's called Daniel the prophet, was Daniel the businessman. He was a business executive. He was a political administrator.

Simply, the Bible says this, "Love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your soul, with all your mind, and with all your strength." The word "all" mentioned four times in one sentence. God would say, "Be all in when it comes to me. Be preoccupied with me." And you can do that if you're a doctor, an accountant, an assistant, a zookeeper, or a mortician. But when you discover in your life what "all" means, what it means to love God with all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength, you're going to discover in the process that central to that must be prayer, because when you pray, it's an exercise of dependence and humility; dependence upon God, humility before God.

And so Daniel, for him it was prominent. Prominent—prayer should be prominent. How prominent is prayer? I'm not going ask you how prominent it is in your life; that's what we're dealing with internally right now as the Spirit of God is speaking.

But can I just throw something out at you? The average computer user—and probably most of us are computer users—the average computer user in this country spends forty-nine minutes per day managing e-mails. A little frightening, isn't it? Forty-nine minutes per day managing e-mails. How much time does the average Christian spend managing knee-mails, prayers? Do we spend forty-nine minutes a day praying? I don't. I'd love to, I aspire to, sometimes I get to.

The average Christian spends—how much time every day do you think? That many minutes, three minutes per day, three to four minutes per day the statistics tell us. So George Barna will say that four out of five Americans pray regularly; Christians pray three minutes per day. Now, allow me, permit me to suggest something that can help cure that. That brings us to our second point.

Prayer not only should be prominent, prayer should be prompted by something. Verse 2, "In the first year of his reign I, Daniel, understood by the books the number of the years specified by the word of the Lord through Jeremiah the prophet, that he would accomplish seventy years in the desolations of Jerusalem. Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes." His prayer was prompted by his reading of the Word of God.

Daniel's been reading his Bible. The New English Translation puts it this way: "I was reading the Scriptures and reflecting." So apparently, apparently the Jews, especially Daniel, had in his possession the scrolls of the Torah and the Prophets when they left Jerusalem and went into captivity in Babylon. And he was an intelligent man, he could read, so he was reading through. He made it, evidently, his practice to read through the scrolls of the Old Testament.

And as he's reading, as he's studying, as he—we would say, having his devotions, his quiet time, something catches his attention. And it catches his attention enough for him to stop and pray about what he just read. So now it's not a monologue, it's a conversation. God is speaking to him, and he speaks something back to God; prayer was prompted by that.

One of the best books I have ever read on prayer, bar none, is a book simply called Answers to Prayer, not flashy, put out about a century and a half ago by a guy named George Müller. Some of you will recognize his name. George Müller was a pastor, but more than that he ran an orphanage called the Ashley Down Orphanage in Bristol, England. Tens of thousands of little children were there and he educated them and fed them for years.

He was a man of prayer, and his book Answers to Prayer is a classic, an absolute classic. Let me share a paragraph: "It has pleased the Lord to teach me a truth, the benefit of which I have not lost for more than fourteen years. The point is it this: I saw more clearly than ever that the first great and primary business to which I ought to attend every day was to have my soul happy in the Lord. The first thing to be concerned about was not how I might serve the Lord; but how I might get my soul into a happy state, and how my inner man might by nourished.

"And so I saw the most important thing I had to do was give myself to the reading of the Word of God—not to prayer, but to the Word of God. And here again, not the simple reading of the Word to that it only passes through my mind like water runs through a pipe, but considering what I read, pondering over it, applying it to my heart. To meditate on it, that thus my heart might be comforted, encouraged, warned, reproved, instructed. And that thus, by means of the Word of God, whilst meditating on it, my heart might be brought into communion with the Lord."

He said, "Prayer is most effective after the inner man has been nourished by the meditation of the Word of God." And he said this, "I sought the will of God only in concert with the Word of God, for the will of God is never contrary to Scripture." You get his secret? His prayers to God were prompted by the Word of God to his heart. So it became a conversation.

Now, wouldn't you like to know exactly what passage of Scripture Daniel was meditating on this for his quiet time to get this prayer? Would you like to know? We actually do know. It says he was reading through the prophet Jeremiah. He was reading the books of Jeremiah and he understood seventy years; God said seventy years.

Listen to this: it's 538 BC, he was taken captive at 605 BC; it's sixty-seven years of the seventy. Time's almost up. He's reading that and goes, "Whoa, whoa, whoa, God said seventy years? Time's almost up! I'm going to set this aside now, and I'm going to pray about that." So there's two places in Jeremiah, chapter 25 and chapter 29, that speak about the exact seventy-year time frame that he's referring to.

I'm not going to read them both, but I'm going the read to you Jeremiah 29, beginning in verse 10. A very famous portion of Scripture actually, some of which you know. But listen to it this way; now, picture Daniel he's reading the scroll: "For thus says the Lord: After seventy years are completed at Babylon, I will visit you and perform my good word toward you, and cause you to return to this place," Jerusalem. "For I know the thoughts that I think toward you, says the Lord, thoughts of peace and not of evil, to give you a future and a hope."

It's amazing how we rip that verse from its context. The context of that glorious promise to give you a future and a hope was all about the Babylonian captivity for seventy years, but at the end of that he would bring them back to fulfill his good purpose. And so here's Daniel in 538 BC, going, "We got three years, and we're going back." And so he prayed. His prayer was prompted by what he read.

Actually there's a couple fascinating things I don't want you to miss. First of all, Daniel believed in a literal interpretation of Bible prophecy—literal. It wasn't figurative, wasn't allegorical; it was literal. It said seventy years. To Daniel seventy years meant what? Seventy years. They weren't seventy allegorical, mystical, perhaps, years meaning something else; seventy years meant seventy literal years.

Just like when the Bible talks about 144,000 Jews in the book of Revelation, it means that and nothing else. He believed in the literal interpretation of prophecy. Daniel realized he was on the very threshold of fulfilled prophecy. Why is that important? Well, because there are people who say, "If you study Bible prophecy like what you guys are doing Sunday mornings at Calvary, you're going to get really distracted from the present. You know, it's not really good to talk about the future so much, it distracts you from the present."

One preacher actually said, "I never preach on prophecy because it distracts people from their present responsibilities." Another preacher said, "Well, then there's a lot of distractions in the Bible." Because God speaks about the future a lot, and his coming kingdom a lot. But what I want you to see is that it did not distract Daniel, it motivated Daniel in the present tense to pray to his God very powerfully.

Second thing to note is that Daniel's prayer was driven by what he read. Now, I say this because for those of you whose prayer life has gotten a little bit dusty, a little bit rusty, you're in that three to four minute crowd, this is good for you. This could freshen your prayer life up a bit—letting what you say to God be prompted by what God says to you in his Word.

I have another little book, and I'm not here to sell books. I didn't write them, so I guess I can talk about them. It's a book called Drawing Near by Ken Boa. And he has taken the prayers of Scripture—prayers of confession, prayers of worship, prayers of intercession, and categorized them for days of the month. And I found it very helpful to pray scriptural promises back to God, to get prompted by what I'm reading in those prayers; they're so inspiring. It's very helpful in my prayer relationship to God.

So here's the principle: the prayer that God accepts is the prayer that God directs. Say that out loud. The prayer that God accepts is the prayer that God directs. This is why when George Whitefield would read his Bible, he would read his Bible every day (this is practice), get on his knees, and have his Bible open, and read his Bible on his knees so that when he came to something that he felt the Lord was speaking to his heart, he'd use that to prompt his communication back to God. It was a two-way communication. It wasn't a monologue, it was a dialogue. "God is speaking to me, I am speaking to him." That's a relationship with a person.

Now, listen, according to Jesus Christ you and I have all of the authority to draw checks from the bank of heaven, the power bank of heaven. "If you ask anything in my name," Jesus said, "I'll do it." Right? But to make a withdrawal, it has to conform to heavenly policy. The only way you and I are going to know what heavenly policy is, is by what's written in God's word, what he has revealed. So when you read the sure promises or the warnings, those become promptings to you to have a dialogue with God.

Now, you might ask yourself a very basic question, at least I hope you do this from time to time. If God made a promise in Jeremiah that the captivity would last seventy years, why does Daniel need to pray about that? It's going to happen. Why didn't Daniel read that and go, "Oh, cool. It's going to happen, give me a rocking chair. I'll just watch." Why did he enter into this lengthy prayer?

Well, a couple of reasons. Prayer is really a cooperation; it's an aligning of my will with God's will. It's like God made this promise: "I want to be a part of this. I want to enter into cooperating with you." And God invites us in to do that.

Here's another example. The book of Revelation is about the coming of Jesus Christ. We know he's coming, but how does John end the book? With a prayer: "Even so, come quickly, Lord Jesus!" He enters in to the purpose of God through prayer.

Here's the second reason. As Daniel prayed about what he read God said would happen, God gives him further insight, further revelation by giving him the Daniel seventy weeks prophecy toward the end.

So how hungry are you? How much do you want? How much of the Lord do you want? How much is all your heart, all your mind, all your soul, all your strength? To Daniel it was everything, and God gave him more revelation. Prayer should be prominent, prayer should be prompted, finally, and we close with this, prayer should be passionate.

Verse 3, "Then I set my face toward the Lord God to make request by prayer and supplications, with fasting, sackcloth, and ashes," that's pretty intense. "And I prayed to the Lord my God, and made confession, and said, 'O Lord, great and awesome God, who keeps his covenant and mercy with those who love him, and with those who keep his commandments, we have sinned, committed iniquity, done wickedly, rebelled, even by departing from your precepts and your judgments."

Now, listen, Daniel was engaged physically and emotionally. Did you notice that? Physically—it says fasting, sackcloth, ashes; that's a physical gesture. Emotionally—by prayers and supplications. Supplica—what's a supplication? It's kind of a weird word. When was the last time you and I supplicated? It sort of sounds like a medical treatment, right? This is going to take four weeks of supplication to get this right.

A supplication is a prayer, but it's a little stronger than just a prayer or an asking for something. It involves a level of intensity, even strong crying. It just sort of automatically includes an emotion with it. It's more than this: "O God, I just want to come before you and just [mumbles]. . . " It's more than that. That's not a supplication. I don't know that is. That sort of dies before it gets out of the room. But a supplication is a strong, authentic, from my heart, pleading with the Lord.

You say, "Well, is that even New Testament, because you're just quoting the Old Testament? James, chapter 5, "The fervent, effectual prayer of a righteous man avails much." Fervent, effectual, are two English words to translate a single Greek word—energeó, where we get the term energetic from. Let your prayers be with power, with energy, with feeling, with emotion, with reality. It's a simple way of saying genuine passion in prayer can be very effective; pray with energy.

I want you to see that this is actually a biblical principle not only in the Old Testament book of Daniel and others, not only in James, but listen to what Jesus said. He's giving a parable on prayer. He's teaching on prayer, and he says, "Which of you having a friend, if you need bread and you went to your friend at midnight and you said, 'Friend, lend me three loaves of bread.' And your friend said, 'Look, it's midnight. I'm at home with my wife and kids in bed; I can't get up and give you bread.'

"Yet, because of your persistence your friend will get up and give you the bread you wanted." Jesus said, "Therefore, ask, and it will be given to you; seek, and you will find; knock, and the door will be opened. For everyone who asks receives." And in the original language it's a continual—whoever continues to ask, continues to seek, continues to knock, because he's teaching on persistence in prayer. So Jesus is inviting you in your prayer life to be a little more passionate, not just to mumble off things, but to be passionate and authentic and genuine in your communication.

Did you know that all throughout the Scripture when it comes to prayer and worship there's a lot said about how to do it with our bodies and our emotions? Now, I'm speaking to a western audience, and western audiences are known for being pretty dry, and the whiter we are, the drier we are. [laughter] And you want to get really dry, you go to England and it's like dead meat.

So I know that we're kind of, like, used to listening to things and not getting all emotional about it, but you know the Bible talks about praying raising your hands? And I gotta tell you, the first time I saw people raising their hands in church, I thought they were all nuts, they were goofy. I thought, "That's so weird. What is this? What—and my antennas are up?" [laughter]

Then I read the Bible, and Paul wrote to Timothy, First Timothy, chapter 2, "I want men everywhere to lift up holy hands in prayer without anger or disputing." "Don't get mad about it, don't argue about it, just do it," that's what he says.

Now, what really is this about? If you're wondering, "What is this about? I come into church, people do this. What's that about?" Raising hands denotes a couple things. It's a welcome sign. You shake your hand, you put your hand out to welcome somebody. Do you go like this to somebody? [folds arms] "Hi." Because nobody wants to be around you if you're like that. You put your hand out, you welcome them.

One of the things I love about my grandson when he sees me, you know what he does? He doesn't do this; he does this. That's what we does, he does this. [lifts open arms] He's saying, like, "Pick me up. I want to hang with you." He's not worshiping me, he's not, "Praise you, Papa," it's a welcome sign. Raising your hands welcomes God in. Don't be afraid to do this unless you're not welcoming to God.

It means something else, when you raise your hands, it's a sign of surrender, surrender. You can't text like this. [laughter] You do enough of that in your car. You can't text like this. You're all in, you're surrendered. It's like in the old movies: "Come out with your hands up!" Why? Because you can't do anything but that when your hands are up. So when Paul said I want you to worship with your hands up, it's because I want you to be welcoming to the Lord and completely surrendered to your prayer and worship.

The Bible speaks about kneeling, the Bible speaks about lifting your eyes toward heaven. Jesus even spoke about somebody praying beating their breast in contrition, and God received that. Interestingly there's one activity the Bible says nothing about, and that's closing your eyes. I'm not saying it's bad, it's just not one of God's top five. Not one of God's commands. It's sort of a western tradition we've accumulated. Why do we think that love for God and worship of the most worthy thing in the universe must be carefully contained? "Because I don't want to get too emotional." Prayer should be passionate.

Hey, let me have you walk away with three quick little principles. I've given you kind of three main points; I want to sum up all that we've talked about with three take away points. Those are points you need to write down or you'll lose them.

Number one, live intentionally. Live intentionally. Here's what I mean by that: it would be good for us as believers to make spiritual decisions about the rest of our lives. What are our spiritual goals? How will I live intentionally after today? I went to a sporting goods store and I saw these plaques over these pieces of clothing they were trying to sell. And they were plaques of local athletes giving their goals: my goal in one year, two years, five years, lifetime, personally, professionally. And I looked at that and it just sort of dawned on me—how many of us believers live that intentionally?

Number two, read carefully. This Bible we have, I hope you own one, first of all. And it's good if you carry it with you. And when you read it, read it carefully, mull over what it says. What is the text telling me about God, about myself, about my goals, about the world, others? Is there a command I'm reading to follow? Is there a warning I need to listen to? Is there a promise I need to grab a hold of or an activity to do?

So live intentionally, read carefully, finally, pray relationally, relationally. You're talking to a person, not Wilson, a person. Never allow your prayer to degenerate into just mouthing words, mindless, thoughtless, same ol' lead, guide, bless; freshen it up a bit.

When I was young, I was taught to pray and I was taught to memorize my prayers. Anybody ever do that? Did you grow up in the same tradition? I memorized a lot of prayers; I knew a lot of prayers. Because I memorized them, you know what it let me do? You know what I could do while I was praying? Anything! I could do just about anything while I was praying. I knew them that well, which meant I was disengaged from talking to God actually.

I want you to reevaluate your relationship to God. Is he your all in all? Let's do that before the Lord.

Father, we close this service with that evaluation. We think about that simple command, but so profound, to love you with all of our heart, mind, soul, strength. We know that part of that means that we're going to want to relationally hear from you and speak to you, and that means maybe changing things up a bit, to freshen things up a bit. Allow that for our spiritual growth and for your sovereign glory we ask in Jesus' name, amen.

For more teachings from Calvary Albuquerque and Skip Heitzig visit calvaryabq.org.